


I Just Can't Be Straight With You

by cecilantro



Series: 100 Days Of Ficlets [14]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 15:26:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13954506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilantro/pseuds/cecilantro
Summary: Jester just cannot keep her fingers from every pie in the group.(Response to a prompt from an anon on tumblr!)





	I Just Can't Be Straight With You

**Author's Note:**

> Response to an anon prompt,
> 
> "Molly likes to clean up his friends to show affection?"  
> So like thats the first paragraph??? fun.

Molly spends a surprising amount of time caring for his fellow party members.   
Well, more accurately,  _ grooming _ them, like a bird would preen its mate. Sauntering up behind Beau to pick a leaf out of her bun carefully, and nimbly side-stepping the reflexive elbow she tries to jab into his rib. He holds the leaf between two fingers to her, almost like he would with a card at a show, and she takes it with a look of surprise and wonder.    
He wanders off.   
His favourite targets are Nott and Caleb. There’s just so much to  _ preen _ , Nott especially. When he tugs even slightly too hard on her hair, though, she bites and scratches, and he isn’t always fast enough to get away before her short, sharp teeth have gotten a grip on his wrist or coat cuff. So he limits his grooming to running his fingers gently though her hair when they’re resting, starting from the bottom, and slowly he manages to unpick the harshest snares and tangles. It’s slow going, and he sports at least three crescent-moon shaped bite marks on his hand and wrist by the time they manage to coax Nott into the water in Zadash.   
Caleb is much easier, much calmer. At first, Molly observed that he would shrink away from any contact that wasn’t Nott’s hands, and so he started with warnings.   
“Caleb, you have a twig, can I take it out?”   
Caleb would look at him from his book, frown, and give a hum of consent. And so Molly would pick it from his hair, occasionally a little tangled, and throw it aside.   
Moving from taking the debris away, he began to work on untangling the red mess instead.   
“Incoming.” He would warn, and though at first Caleb flinched, he relaxed quickly. Eventually, he didn’t even flinch.   
They sit in The Leaky Tap and Molly comes behind Caleb, begins stroking his fingers through his now clean, somehow  _ more _ unruly hair. There’s no warning, only the slightest stutter of Caleb’s breath and pen, so he re-traces his line and his shoulders lose tension he hadn’t realised he kept.   
Jester watches them intently as she talks to Molly, and he seems to run his mouth independent of his body, not even paying attention to the way his fingers weave through Caleb’s hair and stroke. It’s only when Caleb hums and presses into his hand after he strokes a certain place that his words stutter and falter, and though he regains himself quickly, Jester smirks.   
Nott sits on Molly’s shoulders on the way back from the baths. He’s disappointed, desperate for a bath, desperate to scrub away the layer of dirt and blood and panic that has accumulated on his skin.   
Nott threads her fingers through his hair. She’s gentle, careful, tries to avoid the jangling jewellry, tries to avoid scratching him with her claws.   
(The force of will it must take her to leave the jewellery on his horns is admirable, he thinks.)   
He feels her gently pull and twist at a particular tangle at the back of the base of his left horn, hears her peep to herself, grunt, she focuses hard.   
“Got it!” She triumphantly declares just as The Leaky Tap comes back into view. Molly is touched.   
“Thank you.” He tells her, jovial but genuine, and Jester folds her arms and pouts a few feet off.   
“I could brush your hair, you know!”   
“Ah, but you’d pull half of it out with the tangles I’ve accumulated as of late.” He replies back, his tone smooth, and it softens her, she unfolds her arms.   
They re-enter the tavern, and Jester lifts Nott down from Molly’s shoulders. She rushes to Caleb to tell him excitedly about her achievement.    
Caleb’s eyes flash to Molly, and he wiggles his fingers in greeting.   
Caleb looks away.   
“You should just kiss him already.” Jester says to Molly, casually, with a little exasperation, and Molly’s breath catches so hard in his throat he coughs.   
“Pardon?” he manages, and Jester turns to him with a frown that seems mostly exaggerated,   
“The tension, Molly! We could cut it with a knife.” And she leans in, nodding, “I’m not the only one that noticed, you know.”   
“Wh- who-?”   
“Fjord.” She throws her hands up, “He’s incredibly jealous! You should kiss him too.”   
“You can’t just  _ kiss people _ , Jester, you have to ask first.”   
“Fine, ask them if you can kiss them, and then kiss them. Just get it over with, this is getting boring.”   
(It’s a lie. She loves watching all three of them struggle. It’s hilarious.)   
“N- I can’t, you can’t just, do that, either?”   
Caleb waves at them and stands from the table. He’s through the doorway when Jester takes off running for him.   
“Caleb!”   
“Oh, no.” Molly walks briskly to sit with Beau and Fjord, takes Beau’s flagon from her hand, and downs it. In the door, he can see Jester gesticulating wildly as she talks to Caleb. He turns a deep pink, Nott tugs his sleeve, and all three disappear up the stairs.   
“My fuckin’ drink!” Beau snatches the empty flagon back and looks into it, almost hoping there’s some left. There’s barely a drop. She glares at Molly, “You’re payin’ for that.”   
He throws a gold on the table as he stands, and looks to Fjord. “I’m going to bed.”   
“You alright, Molly?”   
“I am going to end her.” He gives as way of response. On his way up the stairs, Fjord watches him order and chug another drink, he leaves the glass on the side with two silver as a tip, and storms off up the stairs.   
“Me?” Beau asks, peeved, “He took my drink.”   
“I’d assume he means Jester, given that she took off after Caleb from his side after they came in. I wonder what she’s done?”   
“Probably told Caleb what Molly wants to do to him.” Beau comments, monotonous, she stands. “Want another drink?”   
Fjord thinks on both sentences for a moment.   
“Somethin’ hard.” He tells her, and she nods knowingly and makes off to order them.

 

Caleb groans and lies on his bed, hands on his face and feet dangling off the edge.   
“Isn’t it a  _ good _ thing that Molly wants to kiss you, though?” Nott asks as she takes her cloak off and hangs it haphazardly over the end of her bed. Caleb speaks through his hands,   
“No, it is not, because we do not know if Jester was lying.”   
“She’s very perceptive.” Nott comments, and Caleb doesn’t know if she’s agreeing or arguing. Nott takes the majority of her bandages off in an unceremonious pile. “Why don’t you go and talk to Molly? I’m pretty sure I just heard him bang past the door.”   
“That was Mollymauk?”   
“He has a very deliberate footstep.” Nott smiles, nods. “Jester would make you do it.”   
“You are not Jester, and she is not here.” Caleb replies, but he sits up anyway. He looks between Nott and the door, twice, then fixes his eyes on the doorknob.   
“Leave Frumpkin?” Nott doesn’t need to ask to know what he’s decided. Caleb nods to the cat, who jumps up onto Nott’s bed and curls at the end.   
“If I’m not back, don’t worry.” He says, then grimaces and adds, “I will probably be back.”   
“I don’t think so.” Nott’s tone is sing-song.   
Caleb leaves.   
  


The drinks hit Molly hard and sudden, and by the time he’s stripped his coat and shirt off, the world is spinning around him. A case of too much, too hard, too quick, too emotional. He kicks off his boots.   
There’s a knock at the door.   
“Dammit, Fjord.” He curses, remembering the key he took from Fjord’s pocket as he passed, and strides to the door, flings it open.   
“I’m  _ sorry, _ I-”   
It’s Caleb.   
“Can I come in?”   
Molly is shirtless and drunk and all around looks like a deer in the headlights, and Caleb is very glad he’d rehearsed that line so many times on the short walk from his room to Molly’s because if he hadn’t he wouldn’t have spoken at all.   
“Oh, absolutely.” Molly finds his tongue, and steps to the side.   
“Are you drunk?” Caleb asks as he passes, and Molly gives the wide grin of a recklessly intoxicated man,   
“Very.”   
Caleb sits on the bed with Molly’s coat on, and Molly moves, wobbling, to sit beside him. There’s a foot of distance. Caleb settles his hand halfway between, and in a stupid, brave move, Molly decides to throw all caution and restraint into the wind, and he takes Caleb’s hand.   
“Ah.” says Caleb.   
“Ah.” Molly replies, “So, Jester told you what, exactly?”   
Caleb looks him in the eye.   
“That is, that is why I am here, actually, she told me that you… ah, it’s ridiculous, I’m sorry.” He stands, pulling his hand out of Molly’s grip.   
“That you should kiss me?” Molly raises his eyebrows, “Because she said that to me. About, about you, not me, of course.”   
“Actually, she told me that you  _ wanted _ to kiss me, and I wish she’d given me the advice she gave you.” Caleb rolls his eyes, “It would have caused much less mental strain, I already know what  _ I _ want to do. I am not you, I am not in your head, I don’t know what you want.”   
“Do you not know, or do you not  _ believe _ ? Big difference, Caleb.” Molly reclines on the bed. Caleb sits back down.   
“Mollymauk, please, I am already suffering one tiefling’s whimsical tongue this evening. Be straight with me.”   
“Oh, I’d rather not.” Molly replies, there’s a flash of a grin, and he’s suddenly laughing so hard the bed shakes. Caleb frowns.   
“Ah, all one big joke at my expense, I see.” He says, and Molly tries so, so hard to calm his giggle, “Well, then, I will be leaving.” He stands again, takes three strides before Molly is up and has his fingers around Caleb’s wrist.

“No!” He protests, “Caleb, none of this is at your expense. I do want to… to kiss you, you know?”   
“Then all of this mess-?”   
Molly throws his free hand up, “I told her that you need to ask before you kiss someone.”   
“Well, then.” Caleb sighs and turns, brushes down his shirt- his coat left abandoned in his room. “I suppose you should ask.”   
Molly frowns a moment as his drunk brain tries to process.   
“Even though I’ve been drinking?”   
“You’re this obnoxious sober. Ask.” Caleb replies, hard voiced.    
“Alright, Caleb, can I kiss you?”   
“Thank you, yes, please.” Caleb shocks himself with the calm reply, and it’s a mess, but Molly kisses him. Once. Then again. And peppers his face with kisses and giggles and Caleb finds himself laughing, too, because it’s infectious. Molly drags them back and they sink onto the bed.   
Two doors down, Frumpkin mewls.


End file.
